Post navigation

VMware View™ 5 with PCoiP

The PCoIP protocol provides real-time delivery of a rich user desktop experience using UDP. This document addresses the optimization of the PCoIP display protocol in VMware View.
Any successful virtual desktop deployment starts with a solid plan and design, from the endpoint device to the datacenter, to support the use cases and business objectives. As with any remote display protocol, the most important design consideration is a properly architected network. To ensure a responsive desktop, the PCoIP protocol must be deployed across a network infrastructure that meets bandwidth, latency, jitter, and packet loss requirements.

Network requirements can vary greatly depending on the network parameters, application graphical requirements, and user demands.
The sections of the paper are:

If performance needs improvement in your View deployment, the frst thing to check is the network confguration.
The needs of every organization are diﬀerent. When you plan your network, consider:

• The kinds of computing tasks the end users will perform (typical ofce work; VoIP; heavy audio/video
utilization)
• Graphical intensity of the work of the typical user (such as forms pages or 3D viewing)
• Importance of image quality to user (artists and medical technicians, as opposed to administrators and office workers)
• Amount of interactive or static viewing
• Physical or geographical location of all users (working from home; oﬀshore)
• Required peripherals (printers, microphones, specialized keyboards, external CD or DVD)
• Whether Local Mode will be used
• Average bandwidth utilization of users performing the job requirements for each use case
• Increased bandwidth required to satisfy more demanding users

Note: VMware View is not designed to handle heavy 3D applications, such as CAD/CAM. View supports light 3D applications such as Ofce 2010 and Aero.

Strengths of the PCoIP Protocol

PCoIP is a real-time protocol based on the User Datagram Protocol (UDP). UDP provides no resiliency facilities at the network layer. Instead, PCoIP provides resiliency at the application layer. The real-time nature of the protocol means that PCoIP makes the decisions about which data is important, and which data can be discarded. The protocol is therefore very responsive, but anything that may induce packet loss or add latency must be eliminated for optimal performance.

PCoIP requires minimal and consistent latency and high-priority queuing to perform well.
There are a number of tuning options for optimizing performance on a WAN including: